USM provost to take new post in university system office

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BANGOR, Maine — The provost of the University of Southern Maine will leave his position to become the senior fellow for academic affairs for the University of Maine System, a new position in that office.

Provost Michael Stevenson sent a letter to the USM faculty and staff on Tuesday announcing the change, which became effective July 18.

“While I will miss the day-to-day interactions I have enjoyed as a member of the USM community, I am excited about being part of a transformation that will better position Maine’s system of public higher education for the future,” Stevenson wrote to his colleagues.

Stevenson will work on a committee that will review academic programs across the university system in an effort to reduce spending on personnel by $18 million over the next four to five years. His supervisor will be University of Maine at Farmington President Kathryn Foster, who has been appointed to chair the committee, according to a job description.

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“The UMS Board of Trustees expects the Committee to develop and promote strategies that maximize our ability to provide students with access to high quality learning opportunities in a fashion that is both educationally robust and fiscally sustainable,” Stevenson stated in his letter.

Stevenson was under a three-year contract that will end June 30, 2015. He will work at the system office until that time and keep his current annual salary of $175,000, according to his appointment letter. A new provost at USM has not been named.

Former President Theodora Kalikow left her position earlier this month and will also complete the last year of her contract at the system office. She will become acting vice chancellor of academic affairs and president emerita and will lead a “community engagement initiative.”

She followed former USM President Selma Botman, who also finished her three-year contract at the system office, working on a plan to recruit international students, even though the system had already hired an outside company to bring such students to Maine’s universities, according to the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting.